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Making pottery in the Nile Delta: ceramic provenance and technology at Naukratis, 6th–3rd centuries BC

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Abstract

The interdisciplinary study of Egyptian- and Greek-style pottery found in the Nile Delta aims to test and expand the potential of different scientific methods to identify regional variation and cultural traditions in ceramic fabrics from a relatively uniform geological setting. Neutron activation analysis (NAA), polarised light microscopy and SEM-EDX analyses were used to examine raw materials and technological tradition in 32 objects, including 15 previously partly analysed pieces, chosen to test the hypotheses of (a) chemical and (b) technological variation between regionally and/or culturally distinct pottery traditions. Several hundred published NAA data from other studies of Egyptian ceramics were re-assessed within this work. Our NAA results confirmed that all 28 objects analysed originated in Egypt, but could not distinguish production centres. Polarised light microscopy clarified the chaîne opératoire and highlighted Greek and Egyptian technological traditions and regional variations in the production of macroscopically similar ware (e.g. Black Ware). SEM-EDX was essential in distinguishing different recipes used for slips, suggesting patterns of technological transfer and adaptation.

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Notes

  1. Kaolinite clays deriving from Nubian sandstone were deposited by the Tethys Sea in the Lower Cretaceous, principally at Aswan and in the western desert oases of Kharga, and Dakhla. Marl clays, originating from shale and limestone, are found along the Nile valley between Esna and Cairo and in the western oases, deposited between the Upper Cretaceous and Miocene. Alluvial ‘Nile silt’ or ‘silt’ clay is the youngest product, deposited by the Nile along its valley and delta, including far away from present course river branches, between the Upper Pleistocene and the present. See Bourriau and Nordström 1993, 157–161.

  2. A core of 12 samples for both NAA and petrographic/SEM-EDX analysis was chosen at the start of this phase of the project, guided by archaeological and macroscopic fabric assessment. Only some of the objects previously analysed by NAA were available for thin sectioning, but additional pieces representing specific archaeological groups were selected for petrographic and SEM-EDX so as to expand the scope for technological examination. This selection process explains why there is no complete overlap between the sample groups for each method.

  3. The likely findspot of Tanis is inferred from the date and circumstances of the object’s acquisition by the British Museum, researched by Jeffery Spencer.

  4. In pattern EgB given in Table 2, the Cr (11.4% down: 154.) and Yb (5.7% up: 3.44) values were not yet corrected as in group QanN and as in Fig. 3b. This correction of the Berkeley results was introduced by Strange et al. (1995, 186). The 49 samples of group EgB and their best relative fit factor with respect to EgB are the following: Egy1 (1.18), Egy2 (0.95), Egy5 (0.92), Egy6 (1.00), Egy11 (0.95), Egy17 (1.11), Egy18 (0.97), Egy21 (0.99), Egy23 (1.00), Egy24 (0.94), Egy26 (1.00), Egy30 (1.02), Egy32 (0.97), Egy35 (1.06), Egy36 (0.93), Egy37 (0.97), Egy40 (0.99), Egy41 (1.03), Egy52 (0.94), Egy53 (0.91), Egy54 (0.90), Egy55 (1.00), Egy58 (0.98), Egy59 (0.96), Egy60 (1.04), Egy62 (0.99), Egy63 (0.96), Egy64 (0.99), Egy70 (1.02), Egy80 (0.95), Egy127 (1.02), Egy129 (0.94), Egy131 (0.91), Egy132 (0.99), Egy133 (0.95), Egy134 (0.96), Egy135 (1.01), Egy164 (1.12), Egy165 (0.94), Egy166 (1.05), Egy174 (0.96), Egy178 (1.00), Egy217 (1.20), Egy220 (0.96), Egy324 (0.93), Egy331 (1.15), Egy342 (0.96), Egy365 (1.12), Egy382 (1.02)

  5. The seven groups and their best relative fit factor with respect to the average values are as follows: MEMPHIS-34 (1.01), AMARNA-3 (0.97), DAKHLE-2 (1.00), BENI HASAN-3 (0.98), GEBEL ADDA-13 (0.95), GEBEL-ADDA-1 (0.97), LUXOR-3 (1.08). The Ti value of group MEMPHIS has been corrected; see this same pattern repeated in Table 2 with the correct Ti value. Also, a 10 has been added to the certainly erroneously given single-digit uncertainties for V before calculating the average values of this Nile mud group using all elements given except Ca, Na and Cl. These elements are known to scatter widely probably due to often occurring lime and salt contaminations and, if considered in grouping, will often result in wrongly formed groups.

  6. The 46 samples taken from the PhD of Bellido, 1995, forming group ESIL and their best relative fit factors with respect to this group are as follows: EGMA06 (0.93), EGNC09 (1.16), EGNC62A (0.98), EGNBA5 (0.89), EGNBA8 (1.00), EGNB37 (0.96), EGNB43 (1.17), EGNB01 (0.98), EGNBA0 (1.10), EGNBA1 (1.05), EGNBA2 (1.02), EGNB24 (1.00), EGNB25 (0.97), EGNB26 (0.94), EGNB27 (1.03), EGNB29 (1.02), EGNB30 (0.95), EGNB31 (1.00), EGNB32 (0.98), EGNB44 (0.87), EGNB45 (0.92), EGNB46 (1.06), EGNB48 (0.93), EGNB63M (0.98), EGNBA3 (0.88), EGNB39 (0.87), EGN 35 (1.36), 36 (1.15), EGK12M (0.97), EGK51M (0.91), EGK56M (0.90), EGB103 (1.02), EGB104 (1.07), EGB105 (1.07), EGB106 (1.07), EGB107 (0.94), EGB108 (1.09), EGB109 (1.11), EGB110 (1.09), EGB111 (1.01), EGB131 (0.90), EGB132 (0.95), EGB134 (0.94), EGB137 (0.96), EGB138 (0.95), EGMM50 (0.86).

  7. It seems that the Ce values of the data had already been changed for the Bourriau et al. (2006) publication (Berkeley calibration?). In the data archives we used here, the Ce value seems to be the older, higher one.

  8. Goren et al. (2011, 686, Table 1): tablets nos. 19–24, Egyptian marly clay, not Esna Marl.

  9. Fine inclusions of epidote are occasionally present in other samples as well, but not as coarse grains.

  10. No biotite was present in the Memphis fabric published by Bourriau et al. (2000b), colour plate 3b.

  11. Without analysing samples of all soil types available to ancient craftsmen at each production centre, it is difficult to exclude the alternative interpretation, that the figurines were made from a particularly fine homogeneous raw material, without additional processing, but this is considered less likely.

  12. Observed also at contemporary Kom Firin near Naukratis: Thomas (2013, 240 pl. 382), but otherwise more typical of earlier periods: Arnold and Bourriau (1993, 170), fabric Nile A

  13. Levigated alluvial fabrics have also been observed in earlier pottery at Memphis: Bourriau et al. (2000b, 31), fabric group G2 (Nile B1).

  14. With the exception of the Tanis sample

  15. Analyses of the red slips on Old Kingdom pottery from Saqqara have noted the likely addition of hematite, soot and organic binder: Rzeuska (2006, 567)

  16. Seifert (2004, 41, 46 Fig. 25); on average, they are 0.005 mm thick.

  17. Noll et al. 1975; Noll 1991, 164–166; Maish et al. 2006, 14–15; Mangone et al. 2009. Also in Greece, different slip recipes were in use simultaneously, as observed for fifth century BC Athenian lekythoi: Friedrich 2009.

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Acknowledgements

The help of the staff of the research reactor of the Reactor Institute Delft, Delft University of Technology, in irradiating the samples is thankfully acknowledged. We are grateful to Dr. Jeffrey Spencer and Dr. Ross I. Thomas (British Museum) for help with selecting, classifying and assessing samples; to Dr. John Meadows (ZBSA Germany), Dr. Alan Johnston (UCL/ICS London), Duncan Hook, Dr. Aurelia Masson-Berghoff, Nigel Meeks, Dr. Andrew Shapland (British Museum) for helpful discussion and comment; and the two anonymous referees for constructive criticism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for Conservation and Scientific Research, The British Museum, London, England

    Michela Spataro

  2. Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Hans Mommsen

  3. Department of Greece and Rome, The British Museum, London, England

    Alexandra Villing

Authors
  1. Michela Spataro
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  2. Hans Mommsen
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  3. Alexandra Villing
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michela Spataro.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

NAA raw data of 28 samples discussed in this article. Given are the concentrations C of 29 elements in µg/g (ppm), if not indicated otherwise, and below the average experimental uncertainties (errors), also in % of C, to indicate the precision of the Bonn NAA for the different elements (DOC 162 kb)

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Spataro, M., Mommsen, H. & Villing, A. Making pottery in the Nile Delta: ceramic provenance and technology at Naukratis, 6th–3rd centuries BC. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 1059–1087 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0584-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0584-4

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